How To Find Your Next Sewing Pattern, The Exhaustive Approach

I have a few sewing projects in mind that I want to make in the next few weeks. But before I share the progress of those projects, I thought I would share with you the process I go through to find the perfect sewing pattern for a sewing project.

It all starts with an idea.

Although it’s super enjoyable to go to the fabric store and flip through ALL the sewing pattern catalogue books, I also do like to do my research online. I stimulate the same ‘flipping through all the sewing pattern catalogues’ by using sewing pattern websites. I opt for ones that sell patterns of a wide variety of sewing pattern companies.

This isn’t to purchase the sewing pattern online, but because when they do sell them online, they often have pictures of the front and back of the sewing envelope. So you can read ahead and plan everything you’ll need to buy from the fabric store ahead of time. I like knowing how much it’s all going to add up to cost. If I have a store-bought dress in mind, that’s quite similar; I may opt to buy the dress from a store instead.

The two online sewing pattern websites that I like to look at are Sewing Patterns (at sewingpatterns.com) and Pattern Review (at sewing.patternreview.com). These are the two I use if I’ve yet to commit to a particular sewing pattern company. However, I always find myself gravitating towards Burda patterns. So I will be on these two sites if I’m still in denial about the fact that I will ultimately choose a Burda pattern. However, from an aesthetic point of view, these two websites, really really hurt my eyes. But they are excellent for researching sewing patterns.

SewingPatterns.com

Sewing Patterns is annoying to navigate. However, I feel like their sewing patterns are always cheaper and they always have some sale promotion on. I’ve purchased from this website before with no problem.

Sewing.PatternReview.com

Pattern Review is well laid out so you can navigate the patterns whichever way you like. If you have a favourite pattern company or one that has never failed you, you can search for it by name from the drop down list. They have companies from, the top brands to the smaller companies, both paper pattern and digital pattern companies. If you have a decent idea of what you are looking for, then you can search for it by the category or pattern number.

BurdaStyle.com

If you are someone who has trust issues and likes to stick to the big pattern companies you’ve heard of and have grown watching your mother and grandmother sew with, then you probably want to stick to sewingpatterns.com. This one is almost the only website I need to complete my exhaustive search, and then I’m done.

However, if I come up empty-handed with nothing grabbing my attention, then I either pull out my stack of Burda magazines and jump straight to the sewing pattern insert section or go to their website. The online Burda pattern store is also easy to navigate with a range of filters to make the process of searching together.

Although SewingPatterns.com and Sewing.PatternReview.com do have a wide variety of patterns, both physical sewing patterns and digital sewing patterns, I always somehow end up on BurdaStyle. I find their aesthetic and styling more in-line with what I aspire and how to wear. There are loads of sewing pattern companies that I just can’t relate to, but with Burda, I don’t have this problem.

If you haven’t come across those online sewing pattern websites before, then do check them out next time you are trying to find the ideal sewing pattern. It will help you with your ‘exhaustive approach’ to researching all the available patterns currently out there for the type of garment you want to make because no one wants to find out later that they missed out on an opportunity to create something cool.

Lastly, because I just couldn’t resist, both the black and white dresses you see in this post are at the top of my list dress patterns to sew next. We’ll see which of these come alive.

Keep safe.

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The world: ignites in me, a sense of curiosity. My mind does not settle until it can comprehend, until it understands. For the physical world, creation has always been my enduring method of choice. For the spiritual world, all-encompassing practices like yoga and meditation, a belief in a higher energy, and writing have always been the soothing and balancing tools I have returned to, to re-ground myself. This is my journey of self-expression. Through written words and different forms of art. To my soul, my inner essence.

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